"And the person with tzara'as is to call
out: 'Contaminated! Contaminated!'" (13:45)

In the fifties, no Hollywood Biblical epic was complete
without its statutory army of Central Casting lepers littering
the set, intoning in their best Mid-Western drawl "Unclean!
Unclean!"

This mistaken idea that tzara'as means leprosy,
however, pre-dates Hollywood. For centuries, tzara'as
has borne this erroneous translation.

But even a cursory glance at the commentaries on
this week's Parsha will show the inaccuracy of such a translation.
Leprosy was considered a highly contagious disease. Yet, if
something that looked like tzara'as broke out on a newlywed,
or if it afflicted someone during a festival, the kohen would
delay his examination so that the simcha of the wedding
festivities or of the holiday should proceed without impediment.
If tzara'as really meant leprosy, then allowing someone
with this disease to roam loose, rubbing shoulders with all and
sundry at a wedding feast or holiday, would be criminal negligence.

Tzara'as was not a physical
disease but a malaise of the spirit. It was merely the physical
symptom of a chronic spiritual illness. If we do not see such
a disease today, it is because our bodies have become so desensitized
to our spiritual state that they can no longer act as a barometer
to our spiritual well-being.

The second of this week's double parsha is Metzora.
The word metzora, which refers to one afflicted with
tzara'as, is a contraction of "motzei ra"
- literally "to bring forth evil." This evil was
principally the evil of speaking slander. However, becoming a
metzora was also a punishment for other forms of anti-social
behavior, notably, bloodshed, false oaths, immorality, pride,
robbery and selfishness.

What do these acts have in common? They are all
instances of the failure to be sensitive to the needs of others
and to share their plight. The essence of society from the Jewish
perspective is not that society should run smoothly for the sake
of society, but that each individual should take up the yoke of
his neighbor. Society exists so that man may exercise kindness
and caring. When someone fails in these fundamental areas, he
demonstrates that he has failed to understand the purpose of society
itself. Thus he has no place in society until he can cure himself
of this failing. It is for this reason that he is exiled until
he comes to the realization that his actions have placed him "beyond
the pale."

That is a reason why someone with tzara'as had
to call out: "Contaminated! Contaminated!" For selfishness
and insensitivity to others can be as contagious as leprosy.

RAISING AN EYEBROW

"On the seventh day, he shall shave off
all his hair - his head, his beard, his eyebrows, and all his
hair shall he shave off" (14:9)

If the metzora has to shave his entire body
- "all his hair" - as part of his purification,
why does the Torah specify "his head, his beard, his eyebrows?"

The head represents haughtiness. He held his head
high over others, thinking himself better. Through his mouth,
framed by his beard, he spoke gossip and slander. Under his eyebrows,
his eyes narrowed in jealousy. It was that jealousy that engendered
the wish to destroy another's reputation - which can be done with
just the raising of an eyebrow.

THE PREJUDICE OF PRIDE

"Hashem spoke to Moshe and Aharon, saying:
If a person will have on the skin of his flesh a s'eis "
(13:1,2)

Pride comes before a fall. When we think that we
are at our most indispensable, at that very moment we are at our
most dispensable. G-d doesn't need us to run the world.
He doesn't need us to even be in the world. At best, we are
guests in this hotel called life. Any day, any second, we may
be asked to vacate our room by ten o'clock.

And yet, we live our lives as though we were immortal.
We know that everyone dies; but somehow this knowledge fails
to impact our actions. We act as though there were two clubs
in life, the "live-ers" and the "die-ers,"
and that we have decided that we are members only of the former.

It's difficult to live out the knowledge of our
own mortality, because our perception of ourselves comes largely
through our physical interaction with the world. Most of our
life consists of action, of impacting on the outside world. Thus,
it is very difficult for us to imagine a world without us being
here. We can conceive of such a thing, but we cannot imagine
it. In the mystical vocabulary, our active connection to reality
is called hispashtus (lit. "expansion").

Consider, for example, the fact that we are much
more comfortable doing the positive mitzvahs, like putting on
tefilin or shaking a lulav, than observing the Torah's
prohibitions. The reason is because it's me putting on
tefilin. It's me shaking the lulav. I am
impacting on the world. Me. "I act, therefore I am."
My non-action, however, leaves no visible trace on the creation.

In every action there is a trace of pride. Even
when we do a mitzvah, when we give tzedaka, when we study
Torah, there's the feeling "it's me doing the mitzvah,
giving the tzedaka, studying the Torah."

S'eis was a spiritual
affliction of the skin. S'eis means pride, haughtiness.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, "Come and see how great are
the humble of spirit before G-d. For when the Holy Temple stood,
a person who would offer an elevation offering, the reward for
the elevation offering would be in his hand; a flour offering,
the reward for the flour offering would be in his hand. But as
for someone who was humble and broken in spirit, it was considered
that he had brought each and every offering." Someone who
brings an offering instinctively feels that he did something,
and subconsciously he cannot help but give himself the smallest
pat on the back. That's what it means that the reward was "in
his hand." It was his hand that did it. However, the heart
of someone who is humble in spirit lies broken within. In his
hand there is nothing. The Torah considers that such a person
has brought every possible offering.

Yeshayahu 66:1-66:24

This week's haftarah is the special one we
read when Rosh Chodesh falls on Shabbos. The last verses
relate to both Rosh Chodesh and Shabbos as times when in the future,
the people will visit the Sanctuary to worship G-d.

The haftarah begins with a prophetic chastisement
to people who give importance to the physical Sanctuary worship
but who disregard the conceptual values. The Prophet Yeshaya
rebukes those who on one hand bring offerings, but who smite their
fellow, or steal the animal for the sacrifice.

Yeshayahu proclaims that G-d, who created the whole
universe, does not need the Sanctuary nor our worship. He commanded
the Sanctuary worship for our benefit, as a way for us to express
our gratitude and respect; but internal virtue is the main idea.
When that is lacking, all the rest is meaningless.

Yeshaya narrates the future redemption which will
be miraculously fast and unprecedented, after which all the nations
will come to Jerusalem to the Beis Hamikdash to worship
the one true G-d.

RIVER OF PEACE

"Like a river do I lead peace unto her..."
(66:12)

G-d declares that in the future, He will bring peace
unto the Jewish nation like a river.

The Talmud (Berachos 56b) derives from the
above verse that one who dreams of a river will enjoy peace.
The Talmud cites two other verses by which it derives that dreaming
of a bird or a pot also indicates peace. How is this to be understood?

Peace ensues when opposites live in harmony. A
pot symbolizes peace, as a pot enables fire and water to coexist.
A bird symbolizes the peaceful coexistence of the physical and
ethereal, as a bird flies in the sky and also walks on the ground.
And a river is a place where both rain from heaven and water
from underground collect, and conducts the water to inhabited
areas for the use of mankind.

Thus in the future redemption, both physical wealth
and spiritual abundance will be present in one location, and the
righteous will be also the prosperous.

Selections from classical Torah sources
which express the special relationship between
the People of Israel and Eretz Yisrael

YAVNEH

This ancient city, known in Biblical times as Yabniel,
is most famous as the seat of the Sanhedrin at the time of the
destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. One of the three requests
made by Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai on the eve of that destruction
was "spare me Yavneh and its Sages." (Gittin 56b)
This center of Jewish learning is referred to as "Kerem
B'Yavneh" (Vineyard of Yavneh) because its scholars sat
in rows similar to the arrangement of vines in a vineyard (Berachos
63b - Rashi).

"Follow Rabbi Gamliel to Yavneh" urge
our Sages (Sanhedrin 32b), and this is where this great
head of the Sanhedrin is assumed to be buried.

Modern Yavneh is a development town populated mostly
by immigrants from North Africa, and nearby is Israel's first
atomic reactor which was completed in 1960.